Death and Cenotaph of Trajan--New Discoveries at Selinus-Trajanopolis.

The paper deals with an enigmatic rectangular monument enclosed in a spacious colonnaded square at the coastal city of Selinus in Rough Cilicia. It was first noted by Captain Francis Beaufort R.N. in his voyage along the south coast of Turkey and conjectured to have been a mausoleum (but more accurately, a cenotaph) commemorating the Emperor Trajan who died at Selinus while returning from his eastern expedition around 8 August, 117. This event prompted the renaming of the city as Trajanopolis, which frequently appears thereafter on its coins and also the grant of ius Italicum, an extremely rare privilege for a non-Roman community. Beaufort's conjecture has never attracted much support from subsequent scholars who have generally regarded this structure, known locally as Shekerhane, as a Seljuk hunting lodge of 13th century date built from the spolia of earlier Roman buildings in the vicinity. Recent cleaning and excavation of the building by Turkish archaeologists, however, have exposed the remains of a marble platform on its roof with features unmistakably Roman. This discovery opens up Beaufort's original opinion for serious consideration. A brief illustrated account of the new discoveries will be presented and discussed in the larger context of the murky circumstances surrounding Trajan's death and the initiative taken by Hadrian in transferring Trajan's ashes to Rome and possibly also in authorizing a cenotaph to Divus Traianus at Selinus as part of his strategy to consolidate his succession as Princeps.